


Supporting

by LittleSweetCheeks



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Childhood, Family, Fluff, Gen, Illness, Team as Family, child perspective, fears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 20:30:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20880236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleSweetCheeks/pseuds/LittleSweetCheeks
Summary: After Haley's death, Hotch falls ill.





	Supporting

“Daddy?” Jack crept into the bedroom, teddy bear and blanket under either arm. A sound outside his room had woke him up and he didn’t know what it was. Partway across the dark room, the sound happened again, and he whimpered, scurrying to the bed and shaking his daddy’s arm. “Daddy?” His daddy didn’t move though.

His lip trembled, Jack didn’t like this new place they were living in, he didn’t like his new room and he really didn’t like the scary sounds he could hear. He wished his mommy didn’t have to go away. “Daddy!” He tried again, shaking the arm hanging over the side of the bed.

Looking around in the shadows, Jack wondered if something had happened, maybe Daddy needed help again. He remembered seeing his Daddy in the hospital with lots of bandages and… Jack remembered, the other agents were there too, the ones who helped Daddy. Maybe Daddy needed their help again.

Padding to the nightstand, Jack peered over the edge at the phone plugged in there, he’d been told more than once never to touch it. It wasn’t a toy. But Jack didn’t want to play with it, he wanted to get help and wasn’t that what it was for? Getting help?

The sound happened again and Jack squeaked, grabbing the phone and rushing into the closet with it. The screen glowed, showing him a circle with words he couldn’t understand. In the darkness, Jack’s tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth as he tried to remember watching Daddy use it. There was a rectangle over the circle now with green moving across it, he touched the rectangle and followed the colors until the screen was covered in little shapes he didn’t really understand.

In the top corner was a little phone and a number one, Jack knew that anything with a number one meant it was first, and that was important. At school, it was always the most fun when you got to be first at things. Peeking out the crack in the closet door, he poked the little phone shape, watching and waiting until a voice was coming through.

“Hello?” The voice sounded confused and Jack thought, kind of the way Aunt Jessie sounded at night when she’d been asleep.

“This is Jack.” He whispered, wondering who was on the other end.

“Jack, this is Penny from your Daddy’s work, does he know you have his phone?”

“No.” He sniffled. “He wouldn’t wake up and there’s a scary sound outside.”

“What do you mean, he wouldn’t wake up, Sweetie?” Her voice came through, calming him some.

“I’m scared. I tried to wake him up, but he wouldn’t. Is he going to stay asleep forever like Mommy?”

There was an odd sound from the other end before she answered him. “No, Hon, he’s not. Where are you right now, Sweetie?”

“I’m in his closet.” She didn’t sound mad at him, so maybe his daddy wouldn’t be mad either for him using the phone.

“Would you like it if someone came over?”

“Yeah.” His voice sounded as small as he felt.

“Can you do me a favor first then, Sweetie?”

He nodded. “Uh huh.”

“Can you keep the phone with you? I am going to call Miss Emily on another phone, so you might not hear me for a little bit, but I’ll be right back. Okay?”

“Okay.”

==

Penny had stayed on the phone talking to him until she knew everyone was coming. She’d asked him questions about school and what he’d had for dinner and then had told him a story about knights and a dragon.

Finally, Jack heard a key in the door, but didn’t move to come out of his hiding place just yet. He heard someone typing the code into the alarm pad, and still he stayed hidden. It wasn’t until a voice softly called him name that he rocketed out of his hiding place and into the arms someone he knew. “Daddy won’t wake up!” He wailed.

“Shh.” Miss Emily cradled him close, turning to where the others were entering the apartment behind her. “We’re going to figure it out.” The room stayed quiet as the adults carried out a silent exchange around him. Jack peered out with one eye to see Miss JJ and Penny walk down the hall as Miss Emily carried him to the couch. Uncle Derek and Uncle Dave were walking around the room, looking at Daddy’s things. “Hey, Jack.” Miss Emily sat him up. “Where was the scary noise, can you show me?”

Jack nodded and pointed as she stood again, guiding her silently to his room before pointing at the window. The two men, having followed them in, peered out into the darkness before Uncle Morgan turned back. “Branch. We can talk to the office and probably get it cleared as soon as morning comes.”

Uncle Dave patted Jack’s back. “How about you get back to sleep, someone can stay with you, and then I’ll make breakfast when we get up?”

The small boy nodded. “Miss Em’ly?”

“I’ll stay right here with you.” Jack looked around for his bear and blanket as she helped him get settled into his bed. He still didn’t know why his Daddy hadn’t woke up, but having other grown-ups there helped, he knew they would know how to make Daddy wake up.

==

The next time Jack woke up, there was sunshine coming through his window and Miss Emily was still asleep on the bed beside him. From outside his bedroom, he could hear someone moving around and maybe even making breakfast, excitedly, he wondered if it was Daddy and he shot out of bed. “Daddy?”

Jack skidded to a stop in the doorway to the main part of the apartment. “Where’s Daddy?” The living room and kitchen were filled with the people Daddy worked with, Uncle Dave and Penny were cooking and Miss JJ and Spence were talking. It was Miss JJ who got up and came to him.

“Sweetie, Daddy is a little sick, he’ll be better in a day or two. He just needs to sleep for a bit.” Her hand was almost in his when he pulled back.

“Daddy didn’t wake up?” He could feel tears in his eyes. “I want Daddy!” He wailed, taking off down the hall to his Daddy’s bedroom. “Daddy!” He could hear Miss JJ running behind him, he climbed up onto the bed. His daddy was still there, but he wasn’t awake, someone had moved him during the night so now he was face up.

“Shh, Jack, I promise, he’s okay.” Miss JJ pulled him back, but not off the bed entirely. “We don’t want you to get sick too, Bud.” He was crying hard now.

“I don’t want Daddy to go away too.”

That made Miss JJ scoop him up into a hug. “He’s not going away, Sweetie. He just needs to get better.”

There was a noise from the hall and Jack looked over Miss JJ’s shoulder. Uncle Dave was standing there looking at them. “Everything okay?”

Miss JJ turned them around. “We had that case a few years back where the entire team came down sick while we were in Oregon, couldn’t work, couldn’t fly, and even then, Hotch never so much as sniffled. He was the only one working the entire case while we all thought we were dying.”

“I remember hearing about that.”

Miss JJ shook her head, her hair brushing his face. “He picked a bad time to suddenly decide to be human.”

Uncle Dave lifted his shoulders up and down. “Been a rough year.”

“Yeah.”

The grown-ups were quiet a long time before Uncle Dave said anything else. “Morgan and I are headed to the office to deal with the tree branch.”

“Think they’ll talk to you?”

“Morgan has his chainsaw in his truck, they have choices.”

Miss JJ chuckled, but Jack didn’t get what was funny.

“Anyway, we’re out for a bit. Garcia is plating out breakfast and Reid is waiting for sleeping beauty to rise so they can run to the store. I figured between you and Garcia, the two of you can hold things down here.”

“Yeah.” Miss JJ turned to look at him now. “You ready for breakfast?”

==

Jack decided, after bedtime that night, that Daddy had picked good people to be super agents with him. Some grown-ups were boring and didn’t like kids, but all of them were really good at giving hugs and telling stories and making snacks. They all really liked the snacks.

Miss Emily had offered to sleep with him again, but Jack decided he was big enough to sleep on his own like normal if they were all staying, that way if something happened, he could just find someone. Snuggling down under his covers, he drifted off thinking of the stories they’d told him.

==

Jack woke up the next day to his tummy rumbling, he was really hungry. Sitting up, he rubbed his eyes and yawned, he could hear grown-ups talking in the living room, so the super agents hadn’t left him alone. Crawling out of bed, Jack padded to the bathroom first before padding toward the sounds of the voices.

“Hey, Jack! You sleep good?” Miss JJ smiled at him as he entered.

“Yeah.” He yawned again.

“Well, I have a surprise for you. Come here.” She held her hand out to him, she he took it, she led him to Daddy’s room.

Jack gasped. “Daddy!” He launched himself onto the bed. “I thought you went with Mommy!” The tears started fresh. “I was all alone!”

His Daddy’s arms wrapped around him. “You’re never alone, Jack. And I heard about how you called Miss Penny, I’m proud of you.”

He was so busy holding onto Daddy, he didn’t notice the other super agents coming in until his Daddy spoke.

“Thanks guys, really.”

“It’s what family’s for, Aaron.”


End file.
